


Family Portrait

by luckydip



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 23:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15278913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckydip/pseuds/luckydip
Summary: Karen looks at what she's gained





	Family Portrait

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karios](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/gifts).



Once Sam had plugged in his charging post and closed his eyes, Karen adjusted the duvet to make sure that the cable was completely covered before she headed back into the living room. As she closed the door, she caught Pete watching her from the sofa, the corners of his mouth turned up into a smirk.

“What?” She challenged him.

Pete shook his head, but the smirk didn’t shift. “It’s nothing.”

Having worked with Pete for so many years, Karen had learned how to get the truth out of him. She didn’t respond, and just continued to stare, raising one eyebrow as she did so. It only took a few moments for Pete to give in, and Karen could tell the moment that he caved. Pete had always been easy for her to read, it was one of the reasons that she’d fallen for him. He was always so genuine.

“I’ve just never seen you all maternal, like. Like you are with ‘im.” Pete gestured towards the bedroom. “It suits you.”

“It’s part of my programming.” Whatever that really meant. Made in the image of a man’s dead wife, to raise the child that he didn’t know how to himself. A child that had violently rejected her, Karen closed her eyes at the thought, the unbidden memory of Leo’s screams still causing her pain.

“That’s not it.” Pete started chewing on his thumbnail as he spoke, a human mannerism she’d never quite mastered. “I’ve worked with you for years, Voss, remember? I’ve seen you with children before. You didn’t act like this with any of them, not like you have with Sam.”

“I know what he’s going through.” She snapped back, irritated. A newly sentient synthetic, trying to fit into a world where most humans wanted them dead, Karen had spent most of her first years living alone in fear of being discovered. She wouldn’t let anyone put Sam through that, she tear them apart first, she thought fiercely.

“Hey, hey.” Pete stood up and approached her. “I’ll admit, I freaked out when we found the kid, but that’s in the past.” He pulled something out of his pocket and held it out to her. “We may not be exactly conventional, you, me and the kid, but family never is.”

Karen reached out and took the piece of paper from him. It was a photo of the three of them, sitting outside on a bench. Pete had insisted on taking one, pointing out that it would look suspicious if they didn’t have any pictures up of the three of them. 

Karen ran her fingers over it, the sun was shining through the tree behind them and she'd just taught Sam how to smile naturally. They looked just like any other human family. A normal family. 

She smiled, and felt something she never had before. Lighter, somehow more content. Whatever Pete said, looking after a child was the very reason for her existence, and it was only now that she had found it.

"You all right?" Pete asked nervously, "Look, I didn't mean to upset you."

"You didn't." And she meant it. Karen wasn't one to dwell on the past and things she couldn't changed.. "Come on, let's get you to bed."

Karen placed the photo on the table and led the way. Leo hadn't wanted her, hadn't needed her, but that didn't matter anymore. He had his family and now she had hers. A family that she would stop at nothing to protect.


End file.
